Henry James (1843 - 1916) was an iconic figure of nineteenth-century literature. Among his many masterpieces are The Portrait of a Lady, The Bostonians, The Europeans, The Golden Bowl and Washington Square.

As well as fiction, James produced several works of travel literature and biography and was one of the great letter-writers of any age. A contemporary and friend of Robert Louis Stevenson, Edith Wharton and Joseph Conrad, James continues to exert a major influence on generations of novelists and writers.

Tim Luscombe is a writer and theatre director. As a playwright, his plays include EuroVision (1994), The One You Love (1996), The Schuman Plan (2006), Hungry Ghosts (2010) and Pig (2013).

He has written several stage adaptations from 19th Century novels including Northanger Abbey (2005), Persuasion (2011), Mansfield Park (2012), Silas Marner (2014), Emma (2017) and Turn of the Screw (2018).

In 2018, his auto-fictional book Learning German (badly) was published.

As a director, his work includes over 50 theatrical productions in the West End, on- and off-Broadway, in Japan, Europe and all over the UK. In 1992 he co-founded the London Gay Theatre Company and was its artistic director till 1996.

He lives in Berlin and is currently writing a novel.